> So, it's a sweatshop because people are encouraged to work, and not browse Facebook behind a closed door? It is a sweatshop because management is trying to i

> So, it's a sweatshop because people are encouraged to work, and not browse Facebook behind a closed door? It is a sweatshop because management is trying to impose a rigid pace of work and a surveillance scheme on employees. The word "sweatshop" is traditionally (AFAIK, don't have access to OED right now to confirm) associated with garment cut-and-sew workshops, which are organized exactly like an open plan programming office: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sewing+factory&t=ffsb&iax=1&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sewing+factory&t=ffsb&iax=1&ia=ima... The false dichotomy you present (you are either working exactly like we tell you to work when and how we tell you to work, or you must be slacking off) is exactly the kind of rationalizing used by sweatshop managers who are trying to break unions or deskill workers. I recommend reading David Noble's _Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation_ and Ellen Rose's _User Error: Resisting Computer Culture_ to learn more about how and why these efforts are used, why they are counterproductive, and to learn how to recognize when management is trying to apply them to your work as a computer programmer.